Page 52 of Wicked Mafia Sinner

"Here is what I didn’t say in my text. Your prisoner left a message for you specifically."

“Go ahead.”

"Tell Rowan I'll see him on the other side. It won't take long. He and that fairy-haired bitch will come to their end soon enough. He’s hunting and always finds his target."

By his Enzo means my son.

Enzo knew about Cora. Locked in a concrete box for months with no access to the outside world, and the fucker knew I have a woman with white hair in my compound. "Fairy hair" isn't a lucky guess. Someone fed him that information.

Twenty-four hours ago I promised Cora no one knows about this place. That promise just cracked down the middle.

"How did he know?"

"The guard." Harlon doesn't sugarcoat it. "Same one who got too close. He was on Enzo's rotation for four months. We pulled his phone. Incoming payments from an offshore account we're still tracing. He was careless and let the glamour of money ruin him."

"And now?"

"Handled."

“Good.”

"The problem isn't the guard," he continues. "The problem is finding who was paying him and who else they might have in our ranks playing a dangerous game of spy."

“I already know. It’s my son.”

Harlon doesn’t say anything for several seconds. And then he asks, “Are you sure?”

I shoot over the picture Drake took of the man who was assassinated behind Cora’s flower shop and then explain the signature. “My father taught that to my son.”

“Understood. Let’s talk later. I have some cleaning to do.”

He means he’s going hunting for more moles.

I end the call.

The compound is dark and quiet. My thumb rubs the bare skin of my finger where the silver ring should be.

I return to Cora, but it takes a while for me to get back to sleep. I hold my little beam of sunshine close and pray I am strong enough to resist her light for a while longer.

My brain plays reality on loop as my eyes close. My son is hunting the woman in my arms. He's dismantling my network, buying people inside Harlon's operation, and doing all of it with the patience and precision of a Volkov.

The war I've been avoiding is here.

Ten

Cora

Iwake up wrapped in warmth and pulled tight against a body that dwarfs mine in every direction.

I shift my weight a fraction and my human furnace tightens his arms around my waist. Last night I fell asleep on the couch with a book in hand. Rowan must have carried me to bed and ditched the chair.

I smile against his forearm and as if he can read my thoughts, a low sound rumbles through his chest and vibrates against my spine.

I turn my head slowly, careful not to wake him, and let my gaze travel.

His face is inches from mine on the pillow. Dirty blond hair falls across his forehead, the gray at his temples catching the blue light from the pool. Sleep has softened the hard lines of his jaw, loosened the permanent tension he carries between his brows. His lashes are darker than his hair, thick against his cheekbones, and his lips are parted just enough that I can feel the warm rhythm of his breath against my shoulder. He looks younger like this. Less Bratva king, more man.

He's not fully awake, but his body knows I'm here. His fingers spread wide against my stomach, his palm pressing flat, the heat of his skin against mine sending a jolt through every nerve I own. I trace the veins running over the back of his hand, follow the dark ink of the viper's head across his knuckles to the bare finger where the silver ring usually sits.